Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-06-30

made; or as the scientists call It, "the till'i-
the clay of our soil? 1t is evident that this
clay was ground down from the rocks to its
present fine and arabic state. 1t was ground
through the erosive action of water and ice.
Water is the most powerful and irresistible
element known, it is always working. and
never stops; the beds and channels OF rivers
show this. The Ohio Valley is comparative
ly narrow, as is shown by the recent mann
moth floods; the water IN the river channel
has worn out passage way, through the
Coal Age. 7, 81 Ir,I-. .
! But while water is powerful in its liquid
state, 1t has not the force it has in its solid
state, as Ice. Those who have seen the great
giaclers OF the Alpine range must not con-
found them with the glaciers of the "Great
1ce age For the simple reason that they
exist mainly below the snow-line and are
constantly melting under the rays of the sun,
nence are porous, and honeycombed, and
very 1rlaDle. Let us think of the Great Ice
5 ags as . period Tor two .periodsl of intense
cold, when the snow-line came down to the
sea level and when ice and snow accumulated
1or years and centuries in an unbroken sheet
OF two thousand feet in thickness in places
Either the climate must have been colder or
the amount OF precipitation vastly greater
than at present, is the opinion of Prof.
Mattleu Williams, lin order to produce the
BAoSAobAOA blldt TOu1Q0Q Lno noun
tains up to height of some thousand of feet
above the sea level. Probably both factors
co-operated to effect this vast glaciation, the
climate colder and the snowfall also greater
The annual snowfall exceeded in amount the
annual thaw, for many hundred years, to eff
feet such vast cataclysm. The whole of
scandinavia, or as much of it as stood above
the sea, was then "neve," or "sneefond,"
(snow-held, like Greenland now; and this
was true of both continents, as far down as
the present State of Ohio.
NOW, when the snow-line comes down
nearly to the sea level the snow and ice must
go on increasing in volume and density until
new condition of climate is introduced; or
else some powerful element to dissipate and
glaciers and the icebergs which break off
from them and float into warmer ATTITUDES.
Modern glaciers. VIC have said are unlike this
ancient glacial sheet. Modern glaciers melt from
above and the water finds its way down through the
glacier-water being heavier than ice--and in time
forms brook or river which flows under the gscer
and at its end terminal moraine becomes III fact
a mountain torrent or the source of some OF the
great rivers 10 Europe But In the ice age there
was no sun to melt the ice to any great extent the
heat Of the earth beneath the glacial sheet was in
sufficient to melt IT. could the friction of the ice
on the surface OF the earth melt or thin 1t
1t follows that all debris stones chips Of rock and
loose material which it found Oh the surface of the
bedrock would be carried along with it, as frag-
ments imbedded in the ice-and many Of these were
sharp and cut into the rock beneath which accounts
for the 1striated pavements'' made by the glacier
as 1t flowed along. Yes, the ice, really 'howed"
just as water does, except at slow rate that is
hardly noticeable. Ice is really not solid like rock
but is in semi-auid condition and ever moving or
changing is particles. Thus the surface Ice moves
faster than that at the bottom which is more solid
Glaciers carry along with them hugh imbedded
rocks, weighing many tons, and carry them for
thousands Of miles. This accounts for the numer-
GUS large bouders to be wherever glaciers have
been which far from all other rockdeposits and
often in open fields, where their presence seems
strange and unaccountable. Over the whole area
once occupied by this immense icesheet now
stretches a soil Of pulverized rocks and "till."
This region is hence remarkably fertile.
... TO an oONFTMurD